Getting Bluefin Tuna Off the Hook

Matt Dancho Swordfish buoy gear, an alternative to longline fishing, results in less incidental bycatch of threatened species like the Atlantic bluefin. The longline fishery is aptly named. Fishermen will unroll a surface longline into the ocean that can be up to 40 miles long and is segmented with baited hooks and buoys. They’ll let it float for a number of hours, hooking whatever swims along that has a taste for the bait. Then the hooks are emptied of their catch as the line is rewound onto a big spool on the back of the fishing boat. Anything the fishermen want to sell is kept onboard, and anything caught incidentally, known as bycatch, is typically thrown over, dead or alive. In the Gulf of Mexico, many fishermen use longlines to fish for swordfish and yellowfin tuna, but they also end up catching Atlantic bluefin tuna, among other species. The Atlantic bluefin is a th...